Limited supply of fossil energy resources and associated global environmental damage have compelled market forces to diversify energy resources and related technologies. One such resource that has received some attention is solar energy, which employs photovoltaic technology to convert light into electricity. Solar technology is typically implemented in a series of solar (photovoltaic) cells or panels of cells that receive sunlight and convert the sunlight into electricity, which can be subsequently fed into a power grid. Significant progress has been achieved in design and production of solar panels, which has effectively increased efficiency while reducing manufacturing cost thereof. As more highly efficient solar cells are developed, size of the cell is decreasing leading to an increase in the practicality of employing solar panels to provide a competitive renewable energy substitute. To this end, solar energy collection systems can be deployed to feed solar energy into power grids.
Typically, a solar energy collection system includes an array of solar panels arranged in rows and mounted on a support structure. Such solar panels can be oriented to optimize the solar panel energy output to suit the particular solar energy collection system design requirements. Solar panels can be mounted on a fixed structure, with a fixed orientation and fixed tilt, or can be mounted on a moving structure to aim the solar panels toward the sun as properly orienting the panels to receive the maximum solar radiation will yield increased production of energy.